Since 1999 PAT COLLINS has made over 30 films. His latest feature documentary Henry Glassie: Fieldwork premiered at TIFF in 2019 and is due to be released in Autumn 2020.

His feature film ‘Song of Granite’, funded by the Irish Film Board, BAI, SODEC and Telefilm Canada, was based on the life of the traditional Irish singer Joe Heaney. It received its world premiere at SXSW 2017 and has screened at numerous international festivals. It was released in cinemas by Oscilliscope Distribution in the USA, Thunderbird Releasing in the UK and Canada, and Wildcard Distribution in Ireland. ‘Song of Granite’ was the Irish nomination for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2018. Fionnuala Halligan, Chief Film Critic of ‘Screen International’ wrote “In an era of safe film-making, especially within the art-house sector, it’s rare to view a title as formally audacious as ‘Song of Granite’.”

His 2012 feature film ‘Silence’ received its international premier at London International Film Festival in 2013 and was distributed in Irish cinemas by Element Distribution and New Wave Films in the UK. He was co-director of the historical 3 part series ‘1916’. The series was broadcast on RTÉ, BBC and PBS in America.  In 2012, the Irish Film Institute curated a mid-career retrospective of his work to date, saying “…Viewed together, these fascinating screenworks offer a unique snapshot of Ireland at the turn of the 21^st century.” (www.ifi.ie/whatson/season/poetic-truths-the-cinema-of-pat-collins). Recently the Irish Times listed ‘Silence’ and ‘Song of Granite’ in the top twenty ‘Best Irish films of all time’.

He has made films on the writer John McGahern, the poets Michael Hartnett and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and the Connemara based writer and cartographer Tim Robinson. ‘Abbas Kiarostami – The Art of Living’ (co-directed with Fergus Daly) was picked up for international distribution in 2004 by the French company MK2. He has directed two political feature essay films, ‘What We Leave in Our Wake’ (2009) and ‘Living in a Coded Land’ (2014). His experimental film work has screened at the Absolute Gallery at Galway Arts Festival 2013, at the ICA London and Recontres Internationales London/Berlin, the Visual Carlow and numerous Irish and international film festivals.

His most recent film, ‘The Dance’, received its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival 2021 and was the Gala Screening at Cork Film Festival 2021. It will receive a cinema release in February 2021.